Hello, Readers!

Found will be available for preorder starting May 4th, 2026, and I AM SO EXCITED! 🤩

For those new to my work, Found is a YA fantasy short story collection inspired by Grimm fairytales! If you love fairytale retellings, then this book will be for you! 😁

Learn more about it on my website!

I also want to give a big THANK YOU to everyone who supposed the recent Lesbian Visibility Week Book Bundle sale on Itch.io! All of us authors are glad to have the support that it got, and

Books I’m Writing Lately ✍️

Oh No, We’re The Chosen Ones!

• Status: 16% written?

• Next steps: Continue drafting

Faerie Manor

• Status: 25% written? (about 10/16 chapters partially drafted, but there is a high likelihood of more chapters being added while writing)

• Next steps: Continue drafting

I was kinda distracted during the latter half of this month with writing. 😅 This means, unfortunately, that I’m definitely NOT getting either of these books done being drafted by the end of this month.

With Found being available for preorder starting May 4th (less than a week from now!), I was WAY more focused on final prep for that than getting much writing done on either of my WIPs.

Between the two projects so far, however, I think Faerie Manor made a bit more progress! I expect progress on drafting both books to slow down for the first half of May, given that I’ll be focused on promoting Found being published.

Other Projects I Wrote Lately

I got obsessed with writing a retelling of the Bluebeard fairytale...and wrote the first draft of a whole novella in 3-4 days. 🗝️

I was first inspired when I heard about this ongoing Backerkit campaign by Bonkers Romance on Bluebeard retellings.

The moment I understood how the original Bluebeard story went, my brain decided: “YES, WE MUST WRITE A RETELLING OF OUR OWN! GO FOR IT!”

I want to flip Bluebeard on its head with this idea: “What if Bluebeard ended up breaking his own rules and unlocked the one door his wife asked him not to?” 🤔

Will Bluebeard die? Is his wife the real villain in this story!? Who knows!?😆

Writing this retelling was supposed to be my break inbetween my other long-form writing projects…and then it became a full short novella.

I’m suprised I got it drafted so fast, but I’m really glad to have this fun project drafted! I’ll be putting it aside for now to focus on my other WIPs, but this WAS really fun to do and I’m glad I did it. 😄

The Other Writing-Related Things I Did Lately ✍️

1. I posted a Youtube video last week about the inspirations about me writing Found, my YA fantasy short story collection!

2. I recorded some HOT TAKES on prologues and epilogues in books with Dianna Gunn, who organizes the #WeeknightWriters writing community! 🔥I just posted it yesterday on my Youtube channel and you can watch it now!

3. I also got interviewed by Introverted Indies’ team member Lydia! 📹 The interview was posted back on April 18th, and you can watch it here. Thanks to Lydia for chatting with me about my writing journey!

4. My #Escapril posting on Instagram has been a bit sporadic for the latter half of this month. However, I will have a post ready for the last day of the challenge for sure!

5. I delisted my books from Draft2Digital. All of my books will be exclusively available on Amazon and Itch.io for the foreseeable future. Check out this post for more details!

What Have I Read Lately? 📖

I was very lucky to grab some books from the library and a local bookstore lately! I also took advantage of the Narratess Indie April Sale and the Black Girl Book Fair taking place earlier this month and got a few books from there, too!

However, I realized something…I really need to slow down on reading books. I tend to read through a lot of “lighter” fiction and nonfiction quickly. However, this means I also struggle with reading more complex fiction and/or longer works. So, I’ve been working on slowing down with reading books and just taking my time to fully understand them a bit more, rather than immediately trying to summarize everything in my head while reading at the usual speed.

Books I read include:

• Nowhere Girl: Life as a Member of ADHD's Lost Generation by Carla Ciccone

• Dragon Age: The Stolen Throne by David Gaider (a re-read)

• The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A F*ck by Mark Manson

• The Princess Beard: The Tales of Pell by Kevin Hearne and Delilah S. Dawson

• The Seven Wives Of Bluebeard by Anatole France

• Celestial Banquet by Roselle Lim

I also watched this video interview where Amie McNee discusses creativity as a missing pillar of self-development and healing.

I ALSO listened to the Series 1 finale of an audio drama called Last Dance. I was not expecting two of the characters (said two being my current favourite characters!) to be cooking together while chatting about alchemy in one scene. 🍝

It’s both hilarious and very fascinating to see these two exchange perspectives on alchemy while cooking what I think is carbonara (yes, this is canon). I know there were more important events that happened in this episode than this, but this stood out as the highlight for me. If you haven’t listened to this series, please do so - Series 1 just wrapped up and Series 2 is in production, so it’s the perfect time to catch up!